Текст книги "The Power Cube Affair"

Автор книги: John T. Phillifent

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THE POWER CUBE AFFAIR

Dear Reader:

Admiralty House stands where I have placed it, and it looks the way I have tried to describe it. So much is fact, but only on the outside. The interior details, and the events happening inside, as I have given them, are fiction. Nothing remotely resembling such things ever happen within the real Admiralty House. Those, and all villains herein described, are fictitious and bear no resemblance to anyone alive or dead.

ONE

NOT EVEN a hermit can turn his back on the world entirely. The air and sky, the elements, he must share with everyone. John Guard was content to do that much, but he wanted no part of anything else. As he stood now, with the sea growling at the pebbles on his left and the dark-hidden shore away to his tight, with only the sea breeze in his face and the constant beat and wash of the surf in his ears, he was content. If he had thought about it he would have agreed with the disillusioned poet who wrote—

"Where every prospect pleases, and only Man is vile."

But Guard had stopped thinking about such things long ago. He had learned not to think at all, but just to appreciate peace, quiet and the solitude of his home here on the coast. From the top timber of the groyne where he stood, he could see, on a clear day, one mile in either direction along the coast, the further distance cut off by small headlands reaching out into the sea. Here there was no one but himself, and that was exactly what he wanted.

On the point of leaping down from the groyne he caught the indistinct impression of movement in that snarling surf, and stiffened. Someone swimming in to shore? In instant anger he stared, then leaped down and ran, because the stare told him it was someone in trouble and instinct is stronger than cynicism. The gray-white shape grew more distinct. A girl, or a woman, in a brief two piece suit, and still conscious enough to make feeble struggle against the rough waves. Angry with himself and her, he hunched a shoulder against the spray, splashed into the surf, stooped to get an arm under and around, and in that instant folly became tragedy. Her shoulder had lumps in the wrong places, no working arm could dangle that way, and his grasp around her waist reported unnatural pulpiness.

Lifting strongly, he hoisted her and struggled until they were both free of the water, then laid her down as gently as possible on the stones. His wits creaked at the sudden need to think. His small bungalow lay two hundred yards to the south. To carry her that far, in her condition, would be murderous. The nearest telephone was all of a mile away, and to leave her that long, alone, was out of the question. She stirred. He bent close.

"Don't try to move. You need help. A doctor."

"No!" Her word was a feeble explosion, cut off with a cough. "No time. Too late!" She was right, although he hated to admit it. Her face, white in the starlight, was young, no more than twenty-three or -four, but the touch of death was on it.

"Just keep still," he repeated in futility.

"Who? Let me—see your face."

He took a penlight from the breast pocket of his shirt and put the light of it on his face for her benefit.

"My name is Guard. John Wilson Guard. Tell me who to go for and—"

"No time. Put out the light now. Dangerous. Trust you with message. Will you take it?"

"I'll try."

She coughed again, and for all it was a warm night he shivered, for he had heard a man, once before, cough like that. A man with his chest caved in and the blood bubbling in his lungs, he had coughed, and choked, and died. This girl—there were places out there in that sea where jagged rocks lay close to the surface of the restless sea—she tried again.

"Chantry," she said, chalk-white teeth vivid against black lips in the starlight. "Mary Chantry, Navy. Tape cassette in my swim-suit. Must get to Captain Barnett, Captain Roger Barnett, R.N. Urgently—" and her straining self-control slipped again into a spasm of coughing. Almost by intuition Guard interpreted her weak struggles to indicate the left breast of her scanty costume. He touched something flat, hard, with corners. He peeled hack the wet fabric and took the thing, a box of plastic.

"Get it—to Captain Barnett!"

"I've got it." He slid the thing into his shirt-pocket, bent close again to talk over the surf-roar. "Is there anything else?"

"Man called Green," she gasped, the white mound of her young breast trembling as she tried hard not to cough again. "Yacht Oberon, not his. Someone else over him. Pretended to be stewardess. Spied. Listened. Planted recorder in cabin, underside of table." For all her trying the cough caught her again, into racking spasms that brought a dark rope of blood from the corner of her mouth.

"Chief came," she whimpered. "Got his voice on there. But they caught me. Beat me. The black man. Green watching. Then they left me to die, but I climbed—out of cabin window. Fell into the sea. Message to Captain Barnett." She was rambling now, her eyes dulling. "Listened many times. They say it is always the seventh stone. The seventh stone!" Then she smiled, and sighed, and sagged, very quietly. And lay quite still.

Guard let her down gently on to the pebbles. She was dead. No more problems for her, but she had handed him one. Could he dismiss all this as being none of his business, just as he had turned his back on life some three years ago? Or should he listen to a newly awakened conscience that told him there were one or two people on this Earth who had lived longer than they deserved? A new sound cut short his deliberations.

From out there, hidden by the swirling gray scarves of mist, came the sound of a motorboat engine. As he turned to stare, a slim ghost finger of light cut the mist, stabbed a hole in it. Guard moved instantly, straight up the beach, over a hump of pebbles and into a hollow, face-down and then squirming around so he could see. A boat rode in on the waves to rush up on the pebbles and halt, the search light in the bows methodically traversing the shore.

"That's her!" a huge bull-chested voice roared. "Right thar!" Now a small, neat figure rose, perched on the gun-whale, leaped for dry footing and turned to say:

"Fortunately for you, Rambo. Saved your neck!"

"Like I told you, Mistah Green, all we hadda do was follow the tide. She couldn't swim none."

The owner of the big voice leaped ashore in his turn, tramped in the wake of the little man. Guard watched them both crouch.

"She's daid sure enough. Why don't we just leave her be?"

"Fool!" The precise voice was as sharp as a whip-lash. "You know the Chief has other plans. Get her back aboard."

"Hokay!" The big man straightened with his load carelessly over one shoulder, the portable searchlight in his other band. "All set?"

"No! Swing that light about a bit."

Guard flattened as the peering beam slid over his head, and knew he was in a tight corner. He had met men like Green before, men who live ruthlessly, who have to make instant judgments and who develop an instinct for danger amounting to second sight. "I'm not satisfied. There's a house over there, with a light showing. I'm going to check up, just in case someone has seen something. You carry her back aboard. You know where to pick me up, later."

The tone discouraged argument and he waited for none but marched up the slope within feet of where Guard lay. As his steps died away the boat's engine roared and Guard caught a glimpse of the name painted by the bows. Oberon. So Mary Chantry had not been babbling altogether. He got to a knee, thinking hard. Right ahead of Green ran a rough east concrete walkway that would take him up to the bungalow, to an empty house but with lights burning. That would really set fire to his suspicions. Guard went up the beach fast, paused long enough at the concrete strip to hear the rap of footsteps going away, then hoisted himself up, across, and ran as fast as he could.

His mind ran almost as fast. Like it or not, whether Mary Chantry had been delirious or not, he was involved in this affair and the only way to get out was to put Green off. And that was not going to be easy. By the time he reached the weatherbeaten front gate of his property he had a thin plan worked out. Through an unkempt garden, in at the front door, wheeling sharp left to the bathroom, on light, on hot tap and shower, off clothes to toss aside, grab towel to twist around his middle, then press close to bathroom door to listen. The hot shower spread a convincing halo of vapor. He listened.

There came the faint click of the beach-side door, a knock, then the sigh of the door opening.

"Hello! Anyone at home?" No mistaking that crisp voice. Guard waited one breath then pulled the door open and went through fast.

"Who the hell are you and what d'you want?"

The little man didn't scare easily. He moved from the table rapidly, but it was alertness rather than fear. The name Green fitted him badly, for he was neutral gray in everything, from his disciplined hair and cold eyes down over his shirt, suit and shoes.

"Good evening. Sorry to Intrude. Guard, isn't it? Your name on this fly-leaf."

"When you're done sneaking around—"

"Not sneaking, please." Green's voice grew icy edges. "I am quiet from habit, not stealth. My name is Absalom Green. May I use your phone?"

"Haven't got one. When a man rejects the world, Mr. Green, he'd be a fool to let it in through a stretch of wire."

"I see. Yet you have television, journals, newspapers?"

"Out of reach, not out of touch. Now, if you don't mind—?"

Guard gestured to the door but Green didn't move his feet, only his eyes. They had taken in a display on the window ledge.

"You're all alone here," he said. "Isolated. Isn't that rather hazardous with those valuables?"

"Valuables?" Guard stared, then grinned and said, "They aren't worth anything. Besides, I have a shotgun handy."

"I saw that." Green moved now to stand by the window ledge, with the shotgun within easy reach of his hand, but his attention on the carvings that stood along the tiles of the window's foot. "I deal in small semiprecious gems and art objects. Allow me to contradict you and say that these are remarkably good. I have no idea where they come from, which makes them unique. And of value. I could sell them for you at a very good figure."

"Not for sale," Guard told him. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm sorry I can't do anything for you—!"

"Sorry?" Green moved swiftly, reaching for the shotgun, swinging and aiming it all in one movement. "The regret is mine, Mr. Guard. You may have rejected the world, but if it jogged your elbow hard enough I imagine you'd take notice. And I can't risk that."

"I don't know what the devil you're talking about!"

"I think you do. I hear your shower running, Mr. Guard, and your feet and legs are wet, but not the rest of you. And there's blood—dried blood—on your arm!"

Guard looked down, and up again just in time to be deafened by the blast of the gun, to feel the instant agony in his chest as the hammer-blow slammed him backwards. And then the second barrel, which sounded much fainter than the first, and then he heard nothing at all.

Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin, slumped casually at the wheel as the car boomed steadily along at forty, flicked an eye at the dashboard clock.

"You're sure," he murmured, "that he won't mind us bursting in on him at this unearthly hour of the morning?"

"That's all right." Napoleon Solo sounded confident as he too snatched a glance at the time. It was just seven– thirty and the pair had been on the road since six. "It was John Guard himself who advised me, long ago, that if you want a pleasant journey and the roads to yourself, start early. The British are a law abiding people as a rule, but their road system was laid down in ancient times, when modern automobiles hadn't been thought of. These damned road markers, for instance. You're on top of them before you see them!" He was watching out for the finger post that would tell them where to turn off the A road and be on the way to Hythe, Sandgate and Folkestone. It came up now, and he talked Kuryakin into a left turn, then sat back.

"Just follow the road now," he said. "You have to admit it's been a comfortable ride. Kent, the Garden of England, they call it."

As the car wound its way through a twisting road Kuryakin reserved his opinion, came back to something else. "If Britain is such a law abiding land, why would a man like Guard want to retire from U.N.C.L.E.? I only know him from what I've heard, and he doesn't sound the type to let the job get on top of him."

"He's quite a character," Solo sighed. "I worked with him a time or two, got to know him well. About six-two, built like a wrestler, and faster off the mark than any man I ever met. Private means, a damned good education, and the kind that once he gets his teeth into anything he doesn't know how to let go. That's the way he was, and that was the real trouble. You see..." he groped for a smoke, frowning over memories, "... there are times, as you and I know, when we have to let go, when the higher ups decide to drop certain things, to turn a blind eye. Johnny couldn't take that. Once he knew who the crook was, he wanted to keep right on and get him, come hell or high water."

"I know that feeling," Kuryakin agreed.

"So Johnny decided to opt out, about three years ago. No hard feelings on either side. In fact, there's a standing invitation to Mr. Waverly, any time he's over this side, to call in. So, as we're on a kind of vacation for a couple of weeks, I sent him a wire and he said to come ahead."

"What does he do with himself, these days?"

Solo grinned and became cryptic. "Well now, you've seen that bit of carved stone on Mr. Waverly's desk? That thing that looks like nothing at all and yet makes you think of a lion crouched and ready to spring?"

"I've seen it, yes."

"Over to our right, any time now, we'll see the sea. The beaches all along here are shingle and pebbles. That carving was once one of those stones. Guard's hobby is to stroll about among the pebbles and pick up any odd ones that look like something possible; then he carves them. He more or less promised another one to match that lion, which is another part of the reason why we're calling in." He leaned over to peer at the roadside. "I think we are home. That's it. Pull over."

It was a quarter to eight. The two men eyed the untended garden; then Solo saw the folded end of a newspaper still caught in the letter slit and frowned as he raised his hand to knock. A second knock got them no reply. He tried the door and it yielded.

"No harm in going in," he said. "But this doesn't feel right, somehow." They crossed the tiny hail, opened the door opposite, and stood still for a shocked moment at the sight. Flat on his back, with just a towel across his hips, his arms flung wide, John Guard lay in a dark pool of drying blood on the stone floor. He lay very still. Kuryakin sniffed, went forward catlike, avoiding the blood pool, to crouch and stare.

"Shotgun, at close range," he murmured. "Some time ago, four or five hours at least." He extended a slim hand to touch, frowned, swung his head to Solo. "He's still alive, Napoleon. With a hole in his chest that size?"

"That's Johnny." Solo came to crouch. "Tough as bootleather. There's a call box back along the road a little way. Get the operator to help, Illya."

"The British are a law abiding people," Kuryakin quoted as he went out rapidly. Solo grinned, then leaned close as the man on the floor stirred.

"Hold still now," he warned. "Help's on the way."

Eyes opened, tawny yellow eyes that Solo knew well, and then the sun bronzed face creased into a faint grin. "Napoleon! It's been a long time."

"That it has, John, but save it. How the hell you've managed to live this long with a load of buckshot through the pump beats me, but you won't last much longer unless you hold still."

"You've forgotten." Guard's voice was a thread but quite steady. "Mirror image!" And Solo swore under his breath, for now he remembered that John Guard was one of those odd people who carry their heart and internal organs in reverse, right side instead of left.

"All right, but just the same you've lost plenty of blood. Whatever happened, it can wait until the wagon gets here."

"I can talk," Guard insisted. "Must tell you—" He broke off as Kuryakin appeared in the doorway.

"There'll be an ambulance here in ten minutes, Napoleon. What—?"

He came to crouch and listen as Guard told them, briefly but omitting nothing, exactly what had happened. "I don't know what Green did after he shot me, of course, but if he left that tape I'd like you to handle it, Napoleon. Find out what's behind it." Guard looked rigid with inner rage and thin as his voice was, it held inflexible purpose. "I'm also interested in the criminal idiots who sent a girl like that into the hands of such murderous thugs."

"Got the tape." Kuryakin came back from the bathroom. "And here comes the ambulance. I think you must have had an accident while you were cleaning your shotgun, eh?"

Guard smiled. "That will do very well," he whispered, "until I'm fit enough to let the real story come out, where it will do the most good."

The two agents, quiet and thoughtful, rode in the ambulance with him to the nearby hospital. They waited silently outside the operating room until the duty surgeon came to make a report.

"Your friend is an extremely fortunate man," he said. "There's surprisingly little real damage. Considerable hemorrhage, of course, but it was only dust shot. That, and skin erosion, and shock."

"How long before you can let him out, Doe?"

"Well now, he's an extremely fit man, tremendous vitality. He should be up and about in, say, eight or nine weeks."

"I see. Can we talk to him now?"

"Only for a few minutes. He needs rest and time to make good the loss of blood. Don't excite him."

Guard was startlingly brown against the white sheets. His tiger amber eyes fastened on Solo as the two men came to stand by the bed.

"I've no right to ask you," he said. "You have your own work, and this is nothing to do with U.N.C.L.E., but I would like to be kept informed."

"Forget that," Solo ordered. "This is personal, and we're on vacation anyway. We'll look into it, you can bet on that. But you're going to be laid up for a couple of months, and these boys may get away in that time. I wouldn't like that. At all. Show him the paper, Illya."

There was a large portrait on the front page, and over it, in screamer headlines: ANOTHER BATTLE OF HASTINGS! The editorial matter went on in rich prose to describe a large scale riot that had taken place on the beach and promenade at Hastings, just a few miles along the coast, at about midnight. Gangs of leather coated motorcyclists had descended on the seaside town, smashing and wrecking with a fine disregard for others, until a squad of police had come in haste to drive them away. In counting up the damage they had found the body of a young girl, floating in the surf. So far, it said, she was unidentified. Guard took one look and his eyes burned.

"That's her. That's Mary Chantry."

"And that's one way to get away with bloody murder," Solo muttered.

Guard shut his eyes in thought. "I can't ask you to step in. It isn't any of your business, and these people play rough, as you've seen."

"Somehow," said Kuryakin, "I don't fancy the idea of just idling around while this kind of thing goes on. I'd like a word or two with Mr. Green."

"So would I. And his boss." Solo laid the newspaper aside. "We'll keep in touch, John. Just you concentrate on getting well."

TWO

ON THE Thames Embankment, not far from New Scotland Yard, stands the venerable old graystone building which houses the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, British Sector. Even to the well informed eye it looks like a highly select residential hotel slightly gone to seed, and this is in fact its cover function, but there is an astonishing amount of space reserved for other activities which the public knows nothing at all about. It was in one of those "private" rooms that Solo and Kuryakin sat and listened to the tape Mary Chantry had lost her life to get.

The first thing they heard was a crackle that made the ear wince, then the slip-slap sound of sandaled feet going away over a hard floor, and the click-slam of a door.

"Stick it in place, switch on, then go away and leave it," Solo interpreted. Listening to the faint rhythmic creaks, distant shouts, the ding of a bell, he added. "That's a cabin, a ship at sea. Plain enough."

There came the purr of an engine, then the snarl of reverse to halt, more shouts and bells, then a clatter that sorted itself out into two sets of footsteps. The door again, noises suddenly louder for a moment, then the click of closing, and two voices, the first one crisp and cold.

"You saw the girl outside? She's the reason why I asked you to come aboard. She's on to something."

"Indeed!" This was a large and rounded voice, full of good living. "A pity. She's quite decorative. In view of those occasional times when we entertain guests, I've often wondered whether we need a stewardess, and she would fill that bill perfectly. Your note described her as a spy. You are convinced of that?"

"Completely, sir. She showed undue interest about two weeks ago, in France. The crew reported she was asking too many questions, of the wrong kind. So I advertised discreetly for a stewardess, she applied immediately, and I engaged her."

"The better to observe, eh?"

"Exactly. To my knowledge she has been through all the papers and documents she could lay Hands on. She has lockpicks and other devices, and she has a camera—"

"Has?" The well-fed voice became suddenly keen.

"Yes, sir, but it will no longer take pictures, although she doesn't know that. And she has not been able to pass on any of the knowledge she's gained. We haven't touched port since she came aboard."

"What other precautions have you taken?" This time the rotund voice held overtones that made both the listeners shiver.

"One or two. At my suggestion she has adopted the brief swimming costume you saw. Consequently we have been able to abstract her clothing and put it under lock and key. Also all her effects."

"To make sure she doesn't run away, of course. Now, who's behind it all, eh?"

"Some newspaper I would think, sir, judging by the notes we found. But she is freelance, not professional. That's just a feeling."

"You have a flair, Green. An intuition that I am prepared to trust, or you'd not be working for me. Hmm!" Into the silence of consideration came a crackling rhythmic beat, and over It a keening melodic whistle that made Kuryakin raise his brows in surprise.

"'Sir,' " he said, "is tapping the table while he ponders, and he is whistling Bach. 'Jesu joy of man's desiring,' I think."

Solo hushed him as the overfed voice started up once more. "We'll have to shut her mouth, Green, that's obvious."

"Yes, sir. I wanted your decision on that. I can arrange for her to fall over the side—"

"No. Not missing. That way would lead to inquiries, an open file. We can do better than that. A decisive end. How soon can you arrange one of your lamentable demonstrations of juvenile delinquency, somewhere along the coast?"

"This evening, if you wish. Nearby? How about Hastings?"

"Why not? Very well, you go and arrange that and send her here to me as you go. And send Rambo along in about five minutes."

Feet marched away, the door clicked open and shut, and then there was only the chilly sound of that thin, precise whistling. Solo started as the tape ran out and stopped with a crackle.

"Automatic reverse," he said, with his hand over the play back button. "I can't say I'm exactly looking forward to hearing the other track."

"We have no choice," Kuryakin muttered. "Go ahead."

The whistling came again, then broken by a sigh and the rotund voice musing aloud. "A crystal, a jewel to some, a curiosity to others, but to the insane genius of Gorchak a way of setting a man an insoluble problem. My loss that I never met him, but I'll solve his damned problem in a way he never dreamed of. Twenty-five pieces I have. Two to go. And I'll solve it, if it kills me!" There was a curious sliding and clicking noise, and labored breathing, then a knock at the door, a scuffle, and the voice said:

"Come in! Ah yes. What's your name, my dear?"

"Marie, sir. Was there something you wanted?"

"Many things, indeed, but for the moment you might bring that tray and the brandy." Judging by the noise, she set the tray down on the table. There came another knock, and the whistler greeted this newcomer as "Rambo."

"Shut the door. Bolt it, and pay attention. Now, Marie, my dear, I fear I have bad news for you. You are going to die."

"I beg your pardon!" There was surprise only in her voice, no fear as yet. Solo felt sweat spring out on his face and saw that his companion was equally disturbed.

The voice went on almost jovially. "This must be done just right. Bodies are a nuisance to dispose of, but not impossible if one uses thought. Rambo, you will beat her very hard until she is almost dead, but not quite—"

Then the girl screamed. Solo ground his teeth in futile rage at the terror he heard, as she realized the incredible reality to come.

"You see," the jovial voice explained, in between thuds and grunts, "if we put her in the water at the right time, still alive, she will drift in to shore to be found. Examination will show that she died of injuries, but in the water. Speculation will find two avenues. Concealed rocks and a rough sea, perhaps? Or some brainless melee, which will be provided to order. That will be enough to keep the authorities from guessing the correct answer, and enough to keep her people from suspecting anything at all."

This was delivered in between the thick thuds of bone breaking blows. Solo tucked his emotions away for future reference. He forced his stomach to behave.

The voice in charge said, "That will do, Rambo. Leave her here. We'll go and check up on time and tide."

In the almost silence of the cabin came a faint labored sound, a moan, then a cough. Scraping noises. Sobbing. The scraping noises getting louder. Then a sudden crackle. And then the tape reels turned on total silence. Solo let them spin;

"She got the tape, stuffed it in her swim-suit, climbed out of the cabin window, fell into the sea—and then Guard found her." He looked at Illya and shook his head. "First of all we have to find this Captain Barnett. To deliver the tape, of course, but I think I'm going to have a few words to say to him first. I've heard various things about British Naval Intelligence, but if this is the way they work things out I must have heard it all wrong!"

The two had decided on the way back to London that this was something U.N.C.L.E. had no part in, yet, so they had made no report, but they had been able to use the comprehensive information services to get some useful data, among which was a telephone number that would put them in touch with Roger Barnett, RN. With the tape cassette stowed in a safe place, Solo dialed the number and waited. Sharp after the second warble an exquisitely modulated voice cooed at him, repeated the number, and added:

"Dispositions. Thompson."

"Speak to Captain Barnett, please," Solo kept his voice level, trying not to imagine what exotic creature he had on the line.

"You have an appointment?"

"Afraid not. I just want to talk to him."

"I'm afraid you can't do that," the delicious voice regretted, "without an appointment"

"I can't, but you can. Tell him it's about his girlfriend."

After a moment or two another voice came on, chesty and thick with suspicion and surprise.

"Barnett here. What d'you want? Who are you?"

"My name is Solo. It doesn't mean a thing to you, but the girl's name should. Initials are M. C. and it reminds me of singing."

There was a distinctly audible gulp and then the voice again, but now in tip-toe apprehension.

"What has she told you? Is she there with you now?"

"She is not, and she didn't tell me a thing that I can repeat on the phone. Personal message. I have to see you, right away."

"Not right away!" Barnett was almost squeaking. "Wait! I can fit you in after lunch. Find your way to Earl's Court and ask anyone for Admiralty House. You can't miss it. I'm Roof Nine. I'll leave word. And Solo—"

"Yes?"

"Don't—do not, whatever you do—bring her with you. No matter what she says. Understand?"

Solo hung up with a sense of disgust and the shattering of a dream or two. So this was the form of the Royal Navy, fabled in song and story? Kuryakin, who had been listening on an extension, met his gaze stonily.

"Jolly Jack Tars and all that," he said. "Nelson would flip!"

"So will Captain Barnett, when I'm done with him. Come on."

The unfortunate captain had been completely accurate about one thing, though. You couldn't miss Admiralty House. Three columns of concrete, each twenty-seven stories high, stood in a triangle to support sweeping convex façades of window glass, and a pedestal on the roof resembled nothing so much as a mighty gun turret without guns. Against the mixed architecture of this borderland between Chelsea and Fulham it stood out like something from a futurist dream. The staff work had been done too. They were expected, shown to the elevator, and efficiently decanted away up on the top level, where the interior decor was pale unstained wood and cherry pink enamel. Solo rapped on a door bearing the figure "9," and as it opened they met the owner of the delicious voice.

For once in a lifetime of wry disappointments Solo had to admit that Miss Thompson matched her voice. In that first slow second of meeting he knew he was looking at near perfection. Her wealth of copper red hair shone as if polished. Crushed violet eyes opened very wide and dazzling teeth were vivid against her perfect complexion as she smiled and said: "Mr. Solo?"

"You're Miss Thompson? This is Illya Kuryakin, a colleague."

"Come this way, please." She swiveled and undulated be fore them, her shape outrageous in white nylon shirt and the briefest possible navy blue skirt. For one female to have so much, marveled Solo, so exquisitely arranged and so blatantly exhibited, didn't seem natural. Miss Thompson halted in the doorway of a far room, turned sideways to inflate her magnificent prominent curves even more, and intoned musically: